Family Effort

I’m so excited about the sermon I’m presenting Sunday morning at Lebanon Road. While it’s always an honor to preach, some sermons really are more “fun” than others.

There are four preachers in my immediate family: my dad, Jim, who preaches in Paducah, Kentucky; Leah’s brother, Jason Moon, who preaches in Huntsville, Alabama; and my brother-in-law, Jeremiah Tatum, who preaches in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. We all enjoy preaching and are very thankful to have a “built-in” network.

So, once each year, we all write a sermon together. This is the second time we have done this, and we have used a psalm both times (and will probably stick with that for awhile). Over the past few weeks, we have each worked on our assigned sections, researched, studied, prayed, and prepared.

This morning, I finished combining the parts into the sermon I’ll be presenting this Sunday. We try to preach the sermon on the same Sunday, but that’s not a possibility this year, due to schedules. Just the preparing is a lot of fun, though.

If you are in a preaching family, or if you have preaching friends, try this idea. It takes some work, but there are some advantages to it:

1. You are drawn closer to your family. Think about it: you are studying the Bible in a way that unifies! What could be better?

2. It’s a way to “hear” others preach without going. Preachers don’t get to hear other preachers all that often, because, well, we’re preaching! However, reading the thoughts of another on a passage gives some insight into the perspective he brings. It’s always amazing to me how differently each of us looks at a certain passage.

3. In the same way, the illustrations, references, etc., are different than ones you might have thought of. Different preachers use different books, magazines, websites, life experiences, etc., for illustrations. Each also has a favorite part of Scripture that links well with the passage that you may not notice.

4. It’s a lot of fun. Some will say that it’s “really easy,” since you are only writing part of a sermon, but it is still work, just of a different kind. Combining all these thoughts–and not having a sermon that’s two-hours long–takes some editorial work!

I hope to do justice to the thoughts of my great family this Sunday. More than that, though, I hope to do justice to one of the most powerful psalms David wrote.